Sixteen curriculum development projects were chosen for analysis. They
represented a cross sample of old and new courses at certificate (stream
codes 3200 to 3400), apprenticeship and pre-vocational levels, as well
as those in various stages of development and implementation. The oldest
project was the NSW Plumbing apprenticeship course, begun in 1976 with
almost a decade of development and implementation practice to call on.
Others were still being developed at the time of the interviews, while
the majority had completed the development stage and were being trialled
and implemented. Fourteen projects were state initiatives and two were
national curriculum projects, one convened in Victoria and the other in
South Australia. (See Table 4.1).

A key person in the management of each of the fourteen state projects
was interviewed. Eight of these were curriculum development officers employed
as such by the relevant TAFE Authority, and whose experience consisted
of convening and managing course reviews and development in diverse areas.
The other six were content specialists or senior teachers, seconded by
their respective TAFE Authority for the period of the project, given some
curriculum training and guidance and appointed to coordinate development
in their own specialist area. Five of the six NSW interviewees, and all
of those from Queensland, were curriculum officers. All three Western Australian
project managers interviewed were seconded teachers. The two Victorians
interviewed were content specialists, both of whom worked with curriculum
developers and other teachers as part of a team. (See Table 4.2)

The two national curriculum projects were studied by participant observation
methods. The observer researcher had curriculum development expertise and
this role no doubt influenced the interpretation of the curriculum process
in those two projects. The convener of the Horticulture project was a content
specialist, while the project manager of Trading Standards was a curriculum
developer. These two were also interviewed and are included in Table 4.2
as the main sources of information, although their data was interpreted
together with that of the observer researcher in each case.

The role the individual interviewees held in the project is assumed
to have influenced their interpretation of the questions and their responses,
although all projects had both curriculum and subject specialist expertise
available to them during development.

In fifteen of the curriculum projects a survey was conducted to establish
industry need.

Occupational surveys carried out as part of the fifteen projects ranged
through full occupational and task data collection and analysis; questionnaires
to employers, employees and teachers, students and past students; face
to face interviews with employers and employees; and the secondment of
a field practitioner to undertake a needs analysis. The Beauty Culture
occupational survey included attendance at a trade fair and an equipment
demonstration and the despatch of a senior teacher to Europe and the United
States to observe and study similar training there. Overseas occupational
analyses were consulted by the NSW Plumbing project team and at least one
of the secretarial projects. Several interviewees referred to using data
collected in other states, and modifying and adapting it in consultation
with local industry.

The NSW Secretarial project used the most diverse methods of occupational
data collection, including a questionnaire sent to a selected sample of
1000 businesses; face to face interviews with employers and employees from
46 businesses; questionnaires to teachers and 500 ex-students; a newspaper
advertisement calling for submissions from the general public, backed by
editorial coverage in a range of journals, newspapers and magazines; a
telephone survey of equipment and computer manufacturers; and a literature
review. The interviewee stated that there were more data than needed. "It
all pointed in the same direction," she said. "It all confirmed
the growing importance of technology in the modern office, and the need
for computer based skills in training."

The Horticulture national curriculum team used a computerised task list
prepared from a detailed occupational analysis completed earlier by the
Victorian TAFE Board. Representatives on the team took the task list back
to their respective states and territories and obtained comments and response
from representatives of local industry. In most cases this was done in
committee, using discussion and consensus decision making techniques. The
Victorian Plumbing team used a NSW occupational analysis in the same way.
The Western Australian Spray Painting curriculum developer used an occupational
analysis of the Automotive industry done in Victoria, and based a detailed
local survey on that.

The most difficult needs analysis was probably that of the Beauty Culture
project. This was to be a new course, requested variously by the Department
of Consumer Affairs, the Commissioner of Apprenticeships and a diversified
industry seeking to improve its professional credibility. The industry
had requested Diploma level training, which was outside the realm of TAFE
level courses at that time. The TAFE managed task analysis, however, indicated
that training was needed, at least initially, at the operative level. The
industry, furthermore, was deeply divided in itself, represented by two
separate associations, a vast range in the standards of professional training,
a number of dubious privately run training schools, strong commercial interests
and ambitions, and the taint in some sections of scandal, malpractice and
consumer discontent. It was inevitable that the industry sample with the
most influence on the occupational data was eventually narrowed down to
those people whose values and standards were most acceptable to TAFE. Somewhere
early in the project the decision was made to make this an apprenticeship
training course.

The Industrial Skills project was not based on an occupational analysis.
The course was an experiment in cross disciplinary, broad based industrial
skills offered at the pre-vocational level. It was a rapidly developed
course intended to address short term problems caused by the economic recession
in 1982, when employers were not taking on apprentices and some trade teachers
faced temporary under-employment. Course development was funded by a special
Commonwealth grant and supported by NSW TAFE in an attempt to find training
alternatives to meet the needs of students and teachers. Course content
was determined by tapping the expertise of teachers across the engineering
trades, and offering a two year full time course for students who did not
gain admission to apprenticeship or pre-apprenticeship programmes.

Specific industrial needs

In the majority of cases the curriculum project was initiated as part
of a regular course review. It is widely regarded as desirable that courses
be updated every five years, and some TAFE Authorities make a real attempt
to keep to this ideal. In NSW, the Secretarial Studies curriculum project
was part of a major course review, with forty courses included in the updating
and revision process. This would help explain the size of the occupational
data collection referred to earlier.

The Fashion Design and Production course initiative in Western Australia
seems to have come largely from lecturers in that study area, partly in
response to the transfer of the Fashion Department to new, purpose built
premises at Bentley in 1980.

The initiative for the Trading Standards Certificate came from the National
Standards Commission. The only TAFE training in this area had been an old
course run by the Victorian TAFE Off Campus Network, while Trade Measurement
inspectors in Queensland studied subjects from the Institute of Technology's
Associate Diploma in Mechanical Engineering. Training in other states was
conducted on the job by the relevant state departments, where many of the
senior officers had been recruited from the United Kingdom. There had been
growing concern in the industry that something had to be done about training,
and a direct approach was made to the Australian Committee on TAFE Curriculum
(or the Curriculum Projects Steering Group as it was then) to set up a
curriculum development project. Industry demand for the Beauty Culture
course has already been mentioned. In the Plumbing and Spray Painting areas,
mention was made of "TAFE training lagging behind industry demand"
and the curriculum development initiative came jointly from the Industrial
Training Commissions in the three states concerned and the TAFE Authorities.

The best example of industry demand for updating existing training was
the Western Australian Hospitality project. In ten years Perth's fifteen
restaurants had increased to 1000; six major hotels and a casino had been
built. The TAFE Food and Catering School had increased from one department
at one college to departments at six, and student numbers had increased
a thousand per cent! Tourism was burgeoning due, in part, to the America's
Cup scheduled for 1987. It was an appropriate time for a thorough new look
at the old courses.

Data from two of the projects in the traditional apprenticeship areas
of Spray Painting and Plumbing indicated that the new course needed tighter
cohesion of the theoretical and practical components. The Search Conference
technique, used in data collection for Spray Painting, brought to light
the need for apprentices, for instance, to look after the workshop in the
absence of the manager, and hence the need for communication and telephone
skills in their training. In the Plumbing courses, data collection identified
the increasing use of new materials such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and
new techniques which were developing with changes in society.

There was an awareness at the data collection stage of the need to assess
the changing importance of new technologies when courses were being revised
or redeveloped. The Fitting and Machining analysis pointed to the need
for fluid power and numerical control technology to be incorporated in
trade level training. The three secretarial curriculum development teams
were made aware of the swing to word processors and microcomputers in modern
offices. The NSW interviewee said that part of the occupational data collection
questionnaire required information on the type of duty, equipment used,
and tasks performed. As this questionnaire went to a thousand businesses
and was supported by the findings of industry visits, information about
all equipment used for all duties in the modern office, and the way it
was used, was obtained. The Queensland and Victorian Secretarial researchers
used the DACUM method to gather similar data, and their findings coincided
very closely.

The Search Conference method and interviews with industry used for the
Hospitality course, revealed the need for enormous changes in electronic
and computer technology training, especially in the areas of reception,
accounting, marketing and management.

The Fashion Design and Production occupational analysis brought to light
an interesting dilemma which can occur when the local industry is comparatively
small. Workshops and businesses which don't use computer technology are
not likely to identify the need for it in training. It was only knowledge
of trends in the larger eastern cities which prompted input from TAFE teachers
to recommend computer use for fashion design. The course was being developed
for at least five years' use, and it was felt that within that period local
businesses would require knowledge of computer aided design. The Search
Conference method used by the Fashion course developers also revealed unexpected
pockets of the industry, such as cottage crafts (spinning, weaving and
knitting), embroidery and fashion accessories, all of which needed to be
catered for in some way in the new course.

In some cases the need for new course components in communications and
business practices - now fairly standard in most new courses - came from
the occupational surveys; in others their inclusion was encouraged by TAFE
Authority policy.

Existing course data

Four of the projects reviewed were in completely new areas. These were
Beauty Culture, Trading Standards, Community Development for Aboriginal
and Islanders and Industrial Skills pre-vocational. In each of these cases
the developers claimed they had a clear idea of the potential student market.

The Beauty Culture course was developed for the operative level of beauticians
and therapists, who were then being trained in private schools. They were
easily identified as mostly female, city based, young school leavers. It
is interesting that the NSW student market research revealed different
patterns from a similar project under way in Victoria about the same time.
In Victoria the potential students were older and many had completed Hairdressing
or similar qualifications. (The Victorian course developed as a certificate
level course, not an apprenticeship.)

The Trading Standards Certificate course answered a need for first level
formalised training for approximately sixty Trade Measurement inspectors
working for state and local government throughout Australia. They were
male, mature aged and working in both city and country centres.

The Community Development for Aboriginal and Islanders course was aimed
at a previously hidden client group of Aboriginal people, mostly urban,
mature aged and male, with experience in a trade, trade teaching, or field
work for government departments. The prospective students were working
as TAFE Aboriginal and Islander field officers. There had been a consistent
drain from this group as they were readily employed interstate, in head
office or in other government departments. The training course was intended
to give them formal qualifications for their field work, and preparation
for entry to TAFE teaching if eligible.

The fourth new course, Industrial Skills, was aimed at school leavers
who, in less stringent economic times, would normally have obtained apprenticeship
or pre-apprenticeship training. They were city based and mostly male.

In the other twelve projects the potential student market was well known
from previous or similar courses, and in several cases sample groups of
students and ex-students were contacted by questionnaire or interview,
for input into the occupational data.

The structure of similar or previous courses was not considered particularly
important to the majority of those interviewed. "We put the old course
in the bin," said one, "and started from scratch." "The
old course was a typical desk job, and we wanted to get away from old entrenched
attitudes", claimed another. The overall impression gained from all
but one of the interviews, is that the developers felt they had a mandate
to develop courses outside existing patterns, to experiment with length,
attendance patterns and subject choice, as long as their decisions were
relevant and realistic. However, the strictures of traditional practice
were probably more limiting than most of them realised. The one admitted
exception to structural innovation was Photography, where the teachers
clung possessively to the tried and tested structure of the known course.

The input of instructors to the data collection process varied widely.
In one case, teachers were consciously kept out of the curriculum process
until the industry had finalised the syllabus content to its own satisfaction.
It was felt that teachers' entrenched attitudes would be a reactionary
influence. In the majority of cases, however, teachers and instructors
were included at all levels of decision making, partly to ensure that staff
development was kept parallel with new requirements and partly to provide
the materials writing function, trialling and successful implementation.
The concept of "shared ownership" was referred to several times.
Where the curriculum developer was a teacher, the tendency to involve other
teachers was more apparent. The Trading Standards national curriculum project,
dealing with a completely new course, had no TAFE teachers with specific
content expertise on the team because they did not exist.

Context data

There appeared to be little consistency between the projects regarding
the data gathering techniques used. Two of the projects in Queensland used
DACUM, and those in Western Australia used the Search Conference technique.
Victoria used the Scalar diagrams of the Systems Model of task analysis,
and DACUM. Practitioners in each State borrowed and learned from each other,
sometimes without fully realising it. In some cases a single developer
held responsibility for the project, arranging and chairing meetings, contracting
various tasks, communicating with teachers and industry representatives,
and supervising workshops and writing teams as necessary. Sometimes a development
team or task force was set up at the beginning and remained the organisational
and motivational force for the life of the project. Sometimes an earlier
industry dominated group gave way to a teacher dominated group as the project
progressed. The Engineering and Construction project in Queensland used
a complex ongoing committee structure, tapping into the State Training
Commission, industry, TAFE Curriculum Branch and college based teachers.
Twenty five trade based working parties were involved in producing the
relevant parts of the course.

The two national curriculum projects were directed by a task force drawn
from a number of states. The Horticulture task force had representatives
from all eight states and territories and, for the first year, from the
TAFE National Centre. Trading Standards started out with similar representation,
but was later reduced to a six member working party from TAFE and industry.

Each project had a set procedure for checking at various stages of development
with official TAFE committees or review boards. Nowadays the procedure
would normally include meetings with industry advisory committees. Funding
and accreditation checking procedures were followed according to the practice
of each TAFE Authority. In most cases, the course was due for review or
a commitment to develop a new course had been made by the Authority, funding
and support was provided, and the process of accountability flowed on from
that.

The one notable exception was the Trading Standards national curriculum
project. Its story is so unusual that it deserves to be told. Curriculum
and industry representatives from all states and territories met first
in Adelaide in 1984, answerable to the Australian Committee on TAFE Curriculum.
This meeting identified course objectives and content according to industrial
requirements, and a smaller working party finalised the syllabus document
two or three months later. The intention was that the course was to be
developed in distance education mode for national use, and when the syllabus
documents were completed, the team regarded its work as far from finished.
The Australian Committee on TAFE Curriculum, however, regarded the project
as completed, according to the original submission. Normally a new national
curriculum project syllabus would at this stage be taken back to the individual
TAFE Authorities to develop the course to suit their own local needs and
conditions. With no more than a handful of potential students in each state,
no TAFE Authority was prepared to do this, and the course was to all intents
and purposes shelved.

Nonetheless the industry refused to be deterred. Through the personal
commitment of a few individuals from the National Standards Commission,
the Australian Institute of Trading Standards, the Consumer Affairs Department,
the South Australian and Victorian TAFE Authorities and the TAFE National
Centre, the working party struggled on, unfunded and unrecognised. Eventually
the Heads of TAFE External Studies recognised the problem and further assistance
with the development of external study materials was donated by Western
Australia's TAFE External Studies College (then the Technical Extension
Service) and the Victorian TAFE Off-Campus Network. The course is now in
operation and claims to be Australia's first truly national course. The
first graduates were expected by the end of 1988.

In normal circumstances the project would have died a natural death.
The determination of a few kept it alive without the normal procedural
and support systems, virtually unacknowledged, and without financial or
procedural accountability to anyone (McBeath, 1988).

Apart from providing procedural and support structures, each TAFE Authority
has a set of policy guidelines for curriculum development. Interviewees
frequently referred to these, regarding them as given facts. "We always
offer part time as well as full time courses, as we must cater for employed
students who can only study at night classes." "TAFE policy supports
flexibility and mobility of career choice for students." "We
always include a communications component in new courses now." The
persons interviewed appeared familiar with TAFE philosophy in the various
states, and in all cases, supported those initiatives.

Virtually all respondents referred to finance, and at least half referred
to space, time and staff development as constraints which had to be considered
early in the curriculum process. Hospitality, Fitting and Machining, and
Secretarial course developers were particularly aware of the enormous expense
involved in introducing new technological equipment as part of the new
course. While they said that they had wanted to aim for the ideal course
regardless of the cost, each had to make decisions about the logistics
of equipping colleges and training instructors to cope with new technology.
It usually involved a decision to stagger the introduction of the course
over a number of years so that the number of colleges being equipped at
any one time remained reasonable. In the case of the NSW Secretarial Studies
course, it also involved limiting the number of electives to those which
individual colleges were equipped to deliver.

With Fitting and Machining, the course was planned to run in forty four
colleges throughout NSW, but it was decided that the expensive numerical
control and fluid power equipment needed for the third year was to be limited
to three large, city colleges, Sydney, Wollongong and Newcastle. It was
considered that moving students to these centres at appropriate times in
their third year would be far cheaper than attempting to equip more centres.
In the early years of the new Hospitality course, students had to depend
on the good will of the industry to make equipment available to them on
the job, until it became viable to equip the colleges properly. This was
seen as a method of keeping pace with rapid technological changes, as various
new hotels or tourism enterprises would invest in the latest equipment,
whereas the colleges would buy only once and the equipment would be dated
very quickly. In the secretarial areas, colleges were already committed
to investing in word processing and microcomputer equipment, and it was
hoped by the developers that this expansion would keep pace with increasing
student demand. Another constraint which became obvious at the data gathering
stage was that some colleges were proving architecturally incapable of
coping with developments, such as the integrated open office model for
Secretarial Studies.

Those teams which involved teachers in the decision making process were
more conscious throughout of the need for staff development. Part ownership
of the course was seen as a method of overcoming the "not done here"
syndrome and of involving teachers in trialling, formative evaluation and
successful implementation. One developer working closely with teachers,
said that he did not allow other teachers to know who had written each
module, so that the acceptability of the new work would not be influenced
by jealousy or status seeking.

As this research did not encompass the implementation stage, it is not
possible to make objective judgements about the importance of staff development
to the successful outcome of each course. It did appear, however, that
some curriculum developers did not give sufficient attention to teacher
interests or staff development needs at the data collection stage. In the
case of large projects in the large states, staff development was the responsibility
of another section of the TAFE structure, and it was assumed it would be
dealt with appropriately by the right people at the right time. In reference
to the implementation stage of a much smaller project, one developer complained,
"Lecturers should have had more staff development".

As indicated earlier, all project groups established early links with
the appropriate industry, either directly or indirectly. In each case they
were aware of, and listened to, the opinions and concerns of employer and
employee groups. In the traditional trade areas, accreditation and licensing
bodies are often based in industry and not necessarily dependent on TAFE.
The interviewee from the Victorian Plumbing course listed the Sewerage
authority, the Gas and Fuel Corporation, the Master Plumbers Association,
the Plumbers and Gas Fitters Registration Board, and various unions, as
all involved in regulations, standards and licensing and all having to
be regarded as constraining agents on the curriculum decision making process.
The Community Development for Aborigines and Islanders Certificate developers
had to be sensitive to Federal Government conditions and funding in regard
to residential provisions, student allowances and travel grants related
to the course. They were also working within the short term funding context
of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, where provisions current at the
time might not exist by the time the first students neared the end of their
course.

An important union constraint existed with respect to the pre-vocational
areas. Those courses aimed to include some form of placement in the work
force, or in alternative practical projects to be carried out in the colleges.
In some areas there are regulations about the sort of work that non-union
people are allowed to do, and all such matters had to be worked out carefully
before planning work experience components of new courses. The Victorian
Secretarial developers referred to a series of meetings with delegates
from Trades Hall.